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freydrew
freydrew
Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
May 22, 2019 9:11 PM UTC
Solved

What happens when you change the email in a user's profile?

Hey everyone,

I got a request from a user that signed up to the community with his work email. He's been a loyal member for years. Now, he's changing jobs and will lose access to that email address. He doesn't want to lose all of his badges/stats by creating a new account and I'm not sure what will happen if I change his community email on the backend in his profile.

Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks
Drew
    bjoern_schulze
    bjoern_schulzeAnswer
    Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
    May 23, 2019 9:21 AM UTC
    The user will get email notifications to the new email address. Everything else will stay the same. All stats and content is linked to the account itself (I guess to the user ID), not to the email address.
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    9 replies

    bjoern_schulze
    bjoern_schulzeAnswer
    Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
    May 23, 2019 9:21 AM UTC
    The user will get email notifications to the new email address. Everything else will stay the same. All stats and content is linked to the account itself (I guess to the user ID), not to the email address.
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      freydrew
      freydrewAuthor
      Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
      May 23, 2019 2:09 PM UTC
      Thanks @bjoern_schulze .
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      Drew -- Senior Communications Manager
        Julian
        Julian
        Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
        May 23, 2019 2:10 PM UTC
        Bjoern is absolutely right with his reply - the only thing that will change is the destination for the notification emails.

        If you use an SSO login you would also have to update the users' email address also in your companys' CRM system, as otherwise they cannot login to your community via your company website. But how I see it your community is not making use of this, so it's probably not relevant to you. 🙂
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        I follow my nose, it always knows
          Dkreiger
          Dkreiger
          Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
          Dec 14, 2021 8:13 PM UTC

          @Julian Is there a way a community member to do this change on their own or does it have to be done at the admin level? 

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          Learn, Share, Grow together!
            Julian
            Julian
            Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
            Jan 6, 2023 1:26 PM UTC

            We do not currently offer an option for users to change their own email address, but this is something that we are looking in to to improve. 

            From what I remember we used to have concerns about abuse, but also about potential confusion (e.g. if you are using an SSO login, customers could think they change their email address also on the company side). As we see more demand in this area recently, it has become more likely that we will address this in order to reduce Moderator impact & increase user experience.

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            I follow my nose, it always knows
              jvdc
              jvdc
              Expert ⭐️
              Jul 25, 2025 9:34 AM UTC

              When an admin changes the user's email address, does the user receive the email validation email notification?

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              revathimenon
              revathimenon
              Gainsight Community Lead
              Jul 25, 2025 10:12 AM UTC

              Hey there ​@jvdc ,

              Unfortunately, they do not receive an email when the admin changes the user’s email address via control panel.

              I’ve always personally responded to them on email to let them know that the change has been successful (since we get to see that the change is successful in our control panel user profile view). 

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              Where focus goes, energy flows.
                jvdc
                jvdc
                Expert ⭐️
                Jul 25, 2025 11:19 AM UTC

                Hey there ​@jvdc ,

                Unfortunately, they do not receive an email when the admin changes the user’s email address via control panel.

                I’ve always personally responded to them on email to let them know that the change has been successful (since we get to see that the change is successful in our control panel user profile view). 

                okay … any API calls that could trigger this email?

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                Kenneth R
                Kenneth R
                Expert ⭐️⭐️
                Jul 30, 2025 10:47 AM UTC

                ​@jvdc There unfortunately isn’t a webhook for admin changes to an email address.  So I’m not sure if it can be done via API.  

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